The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group works to help people whose rights have been violated and investigates cases involving such abuse, as well as assessing the overall human rights situation in Ukraine. The Group also seeks to develop awareness of human rights issues through public events and its various publications

25-year-old Crimean Tatar, Edem Asanov, has been found dead in an abandoned sanatorium in Yevpatoria, a week after he disappeared on Sept 29. Edem Asanov was one of four young Crimean Tatars to have been abducted or disappear over the last 10 days | detail

The fact that 23-year-old Apselymov Eskender is the fourth young Crimean Tatar to have been abducted or gone missing in one week, can only heighten the suspicion that the Crimean puppet regime and those pulling its strings in Moscow want to intimidate the Crimean Tatars and force them to leave their homeland. | detail

A court in Simferopol on Monday, Sept 29, refused to unfreeze the assets and bank accounts of the NGO Crimea Fund and allowed the prosecutor’s application to remove Mustafa Dzhemiliev from the list of the Fund’s founders. | detail

It is difficult not to suspect that the abduction of two young men in Crimea is part of an ongoing offensive aimed at instilling an atmosphere of terror and forcing the Crimean Tatars to leave their homeland | detail

Say that the Crimea was annexed by Russia, that the rights of Crimean Tatars, ethnic Ukrainians and others are being infringed, and you risk being labelled an ‘extremist’, prosecuted for ‘inciting inter-ethnic enmity’ or deported as ‘undesirable’. And most terrifyingly, you risk being ignored by western leaders who really don’t want to know. | detail

A week after the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People was first subjected to an 11-hour search and then evicted, the Mejlis in Bakhchysarai are also facing eviction. Neither the Mejlis nor the NGO which leases them the building were informed of the supposed court hearing. | detail

Moscow really scraped the barrel when they installed Sergei Aksyonov as the Crimea’s leader and Natalya Poklonskaya as ‘prosecutor’. Both have effectively threatened to prosecute those who do not recognize Russian rule and to deport Crimean Tatars for what they call ‘inciting interethnic enmity’. | detail

Gayana Yuksel, member of the Mejlis, has been taken off the train from Kyiv to Simferopol. She was returning from visiting her husband, Ismet Yuksel whom the occupation regime has banned from entering the Crimea | detail

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov recently asserted that the Crimean Tatar people have received what they couldn’t have dreamt of within Ukraine”. Lavrov was unusually close to the truth since in their worst nightmares Crimean Tatars could not have imagined the violations of their rights seen since Russia annexed their homeland. | detail

If any Crimean Tatar had hoped that fears about Russia’s occupation of their homeland were unfounded, hope died on Sept 17. The Mejlis has been given 24 hours to ‘vacate’ their headquarters in Simferopol. Associations with the Deportation when all Crimean Tatars were given just half an hour to prepare for exile are perhaps exaggerated, however the reminders of Soviet repression are certainly increasing by the day | detail

The 11-hour search of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis ended with the FSB removing the minutes from several meetings of the Mejlis; religious books and personal items, belonging to Mustafa Dzhemiliev. It appears that Russia and its occupation regime, having failed to ‘tame’ or at least silence the Mejlis, are now resorting to open repression | detail

During the night after ‘elections’ organized by the occupation regime in the Crimea and boycotted by most Crimean Tatars, three men carried out a highly specific attack on the Mejlis building in Simferopol. | detail

A Mejlis spokesperson believes the vandalism to be the latest in a series of provocations and linked with the coming elections which the Mejlis has called on all Crimeans concerned about the violation of Crimean Tatar rights to boycott | detail

The Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People has issued a statement in which it points to the widespread rights violations seen in recent months in the Crimea, including violations of the rights of the Crimean Tatars and calls on all Crimeans to boycott the elections | detail

The Simferopol authorities have refused to allow Crimean Tatars to hold their traditional remembrance gathering to mark European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism on Aug 23. They claim that this is because of the hot weather. | detail

Veteran Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemiliev is adamant that acceptance of Russia’s annexation of Crimea must not become part of any agreement to stop Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine. He is equally blunt about attempts to make his son’s ongoing detention in Simferopol dependent on Dzhemiliev’s malleability. | detail

Defence of the Crimean Tatar people and their recognition as indigenous people of Ukraine are long overdue, but also seen by analysts as having an important role to play in the legal fight against Russia’s annexation of the Crimea | detail